Airborne satellite terminals may provide a communication link between an aircraft and terrestrial networks via one or more satellites. Such terminals may be located within a radome or other enclosure on the exterior of an aircraft's fuselage or other location such as the tail. These terminals typically operate over a large range of temperatures, and may operate in environments where they are subjected to high thermal loads, which may degrade performance or damage electronic components. For example, such terminals may operate when the aircraft is on the ground in a location subject to significant solar loading and high ambient temperatures that cause the components of the terminal to exceed some threshold while the aircraft is on the ground. As another example, a terminal may have a high transmission load period, where the temperature of various electronic components of the terminal may exceed the threshold for a limited period of time. In order to prevent damage to the components of the terminal, the terminal may be shut down so that it may cool to a temperature at or below the threshold. While the terminal is shut down, transmissions may not be sent nor signals received by the terminal, making the communication link unavailable to the aircraft or users aboard the aircraft until the terminal is sufficiently cooled to again safely operate.
A transmit amplifier of the terminal may amplify an uplink signal and provide it to an antenna for transmission from the terminal to a satellite. The transmit amplifier of the terminal may be one of the components that generate the most heat within the terminal. Given the transmit amplifier's thermal significance, mitigation techniques may be used to reduce the impact of the transmit amplifier on the overall thermal load of the terminal. One technique may be to relocate the transmit amplifier from outside the aircraft fuselage to a location inside the aircraft fuselage. However, the increased distance may result in high radio frequency (RF) losses between the transmit amplifier and the antenna. Another technique may be to employ expensive heat tolerant materials or various heat dissipating devices, e.g. fans, heat sinks, or forced air or liquid cooling through the fuselage into the radome housing the terminal. However, such systems can be large, heavy, expensive to design and manufacture, or unreliable, affecting overall reliability of the terminal. As a result of these deficiencies, improved systems and techniques to operate an aircraft mounted terminal are desired.